Editing & annotating
Change text and images, comment, highlight, measure, redact and run OCR.
12 articles · Updated
Basics
- Edit the existing text in a PDFSwitch the editor from Fill out to Edit PDF (or press E), click a line of the document's text and type. The new text is drawn over a cover patch in the closest standard font; the old characters stay in the file unless you redact them.
- Add text, images, shapes and whiteout to a PDFIn Edit & fill mode, pick a tool from the toolbar (Text, Image, Erase, shapes, marks, Table, Date, Draw) and click or drag on the page. Select anything you added to restyle, move, lock or copy it to other pages.
- Undo changes and restore an earlier versionPress ⌘/Ctrl Z to undo and ⇧ ⌘/Ctrl Z (or Ctrl Y) to redo. Your work saves automatically; to go further back, open More (⋯) → Version history and click Restore on any version. Restoring never erases the current state.
- Create a new PDF from scratchClick New in the sidebar and choose Blank document. PDFBetter opens one empty page in the editor (US Letter or A4, depending on your language), where you can type, add images and shapes, build form fields and add more pages.
Review & markup
- Highlight, comment on and annotate a PDFUse Highlight, Underline or Strikeout and drag across text; use Sticky or Comment for notes and threads. Open More → Review annotations to reply, resolve and filter, and Done → Export comments for a PDF, CSV or JSON summary.
- Measure distances and areas on a drawingChoose Measure in the toolbar, set the drawing's Scale (for example
1/4 in = 1 ftor1:100) or Calibrate from a known length, then click two points for a Distance or click each corner for Perimeter and Area.
Pages & scans
- Manage pages, page numbers and watermarks in the editorClick Pages in the toolbar to open thumbnails: drag to reorder, and use the buttons to rotate, duplicate, delete, crop, resize or insert pages. Page numbers and watermarks are in the toolbar too; headers, footers and Bates numbers are separate browser tools.
- Make a scanned PDF editable and searchable with OCROpen the OCR PDF tool, upload the scan, pick the Languages and pages and click Recognize text. The result looks identical but has a searchable text layer; click Open in the editor to change its text. OCR is counted per page recognized.
Redact & download
- Redact a PDF permanentlyChoose Redact (in the Cover group), drag over everything to remove, then click Apply redactions and confirm. Text, images and drawings under each mark are removed from the file, not just covered, and the affected pages become images.
- Download your edited PDF, fillable or flattenedClick Done → Download, choose Keep fillable or Flatten, decide whether to Include comments and sticky notes, and click Download. Downloading needs a free account; Free includes 3 edited-document downloads a month, and Pro is unlimited.
Viewing & printing
- Read, search and move around a PDF in the editorOpen More (⋯) → Read mode for just the document. Press ⌘/Ctrl F (or Search in the toolbar) to find text, use the page bar at the bottom to jump and zoom, and Pages for thumbnails.
- Print a PDF from PDFBetterClick Done → Print (or the printer icon in the top bar), then Print. PDFBetter prepares a flattened copy and opens your browser's print dialog, where you pick the printer, pages and scale. Printing counts as a download, so it needs a free account.
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